The 2018 Razzie Award Nominees Are Indeed Quite Bad

A time-honored tradition almost as old and almost as honored as the Oscars, the Golden Raspberry Awards (or the Razzies to those of you who are fruit averse) are the annual tribute to (or drubbing for) the absolute worst in cinema. Only their choices are sometimes as questionable as the movies they’re supposed to highlight. The Razzies aren’t selected by an august body like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; pretty much anyone who pays can be a part of the group and vote in their awards. And looking over the categories, I see some odd choices.

The biggest head-scratcher of the bunch is Jennifer Lawrence for Worst Actress in mother! I know that film was polarizing. I know it got an F CinemaScore. But even if you hated the film, how was Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in any way part of the problem? You might think the movie is pretentious garbage, but you have to admit Lawrence is acting her guts out in it. Or at least I thought you did until I saw these Razzie nominees. (Darren Aronofsky for Worst Director seems crazy to me as well, but I guess if you hated that movie, and certainly some people did, it is his fault. I just have a hard time comparing him to, say, the dude who made Fifty Shades Darker.)

The Worst Picture nominees are a little better (or worse, technically speaking) although I’m disappointed that neither Geostorm nor The Snowman wound up making the cut. Instead, the Razzies went with bigger-name targets like Tom Cruise’s The Mummy. Which was bad, don’t get me wrong. It just wasn’t Geostorm bad. (Neither was Cruise, who got a Worst Actor nomination over Gerard Butler.) And where is The Book of Henry? Forget about last year; that’s one of the worst movies of the last decade. It didn’t get a single nomination. That is absolutely ludicrous.

So here are the Razzie nominations. The “winners” will be announced on March 3. One day we’ll get the bad movie awards we need, and not the ones we deserve.

Worst Picture

The Emoji MovieTransformers: The Last KnightFifty Shades DarkerThe MummyBaywatch

Javier Bardem, mother! and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Russell Crowe, The Mummy
Josh Duhamel, Transformers: The Last Knight
Mel Gibson, Daddy’s Home 2
Anthony Hopkins, Collide and Transformers: The Last Knight

Any Combination of Two Characters, Two Sex Toys or Two Sexual Positions, Fifty Shades Darker
Any Combination of Two Humans, Two Robots or Two Explosions, Transformers: The Last Knight
Any Two Obnoxious Emojis, The Emoji Movie
Johnny Depp and His Worn Out Drunk Routine, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Tyler Perry and Either the Ratty Old Dress or Worn Out Wig, BOO! 2: A Madea Halloween